


To see in a new light

by dragonesdepapel



Series: Smoke and Mirrors [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Identity Reveal, and i still haven't learned how to tag lol, it's been 84 years...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 21:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13490613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonesdepapel/pseuds/dragonesdepapel
Summary: "You are right." She groaned, looking up at the ceiling. "Is it supposed to be this difficult? Is that why there are so many bad teen movies with even worse love triangles?"





	To see in a new light

The sun was shining bright, and Marinette would have liked nothing more than to roll to her side, hide under the covers and sleep for the next three years. Maybe four. It had been a really rough week. She hoped Chat had gotten some sleep. He had left in such a hurry the night before. The long string of attacks must have been getting to him too. 

As tired as she was, she knew it'd only get worse if she didn't at least  _try_  to maintain a decent sleep schedule. She sat up before her resolve could abandon her. 

"Good morning Marinette!" Tikki greeted from somewhere in the room. Aside from the naps she needed after their transformations, she didn't seem to sleep much. Marinette wondered what she did to keep herself occupied at night. Sometimes she couldn't help but think that Tikki's life felt overwhelmingly boring. Hiding in her purse most of the time, forced to follow Marinette everywhere. Not even at night she could wonder off very far, the possibility of being needed always looming over her. 

But these were thoughts too big and too gloomy for someone who had just woken up, so Marinette pushed them away. 

"Good morning" she greeted back, still blinking to get the sleep out of her eyes. She reached for her phone, hoping that focusing on something would help clear her head. She had a couple of texts from Adrien.  

 _(4_ _:05)_ _You_ _up?_  

 _(4_ _:05)_ _And_ _by_ _up_   _I_   _mean up_ _to_   _having_  a  _conversation_ _in the middle of the night._  

 _(4_ _:06)_ _If_   _not, just ignore this._  

 _(4_ _:06)_ _I'm sorry I'm blowing up your phone, I_ _really_ _hope I don't wake you up._  

 _(4_ _:08)_ _Just_ _text me when you_ _wak_ _e_ _up?_  

 _(4_ _:15)_ _I'm_ _ok by the way, sorry again, I didn't want you to worry,_ _I'll stop now._  

It wasn't weird for him to text multiple times in a row, but the sent time caught her attention. It had only been a few minutes after Marinette had gotten back home. She had been so exhausted she hadn't heard it. Sometimes Adrien kept odd hours, like her, although for very different reasons. 

She hesitated for a second before texting back. But he always got up early, even when he didn’t have anything scheduled and he had gone to sleep late at night. She invited him over. She could tell that whatever had happened, he didn't feel like discussing it via text. 

She brushed her teeth and was on her way to say hi to her parents when he texted back. 

"Adrien is coming over in a little while, is that ok?" she asked after she kissed her dad's cheek. 

They didn't mind, of course. They asked if he had already had breakfast. He probably had, but he never refused food anyway, so she told them no. She went upstairs again so she could take a quick shower before he arrived. 

She was finishing drying her hair when she heard him arrive. She made sure that Tikki was already out of sight, then rushed downstairs with her hair still down. She loved her parents, and she knew they loved him, but they could be a bit overbearing sometimes. Not that she blamed them. They all had noticed that Adrien's dad wasn't the most attentive. Adrien deserved all the love he could get, but maybe not so early in the morning. 

They made their way upstairs carrying as many plates of food as they could. Marinette asked if he wanted to have breakfast on her balcony, but Adrien preferred to stay inside. They carefully set the plates on the floor, they were more comfortable that way anyway. Adrien took his usual spot, sitting against her lounge chair. She pushed her computer chair to sit in front of her vanity mirror and set her mug on the dressing table. 

"I'm sorry I didn't reply last night, I was asleep" she said as she started brushing her hair. 

"It's ok, I didn't actually think you would be up. I got too worked up and needed to do something, I guess. I'm glad my texts didn't wake you though." 

"Don't worry, I was so tired I think an akuma could have broken into my room and I wouldn't have noticed" she said. She grabbed her hair ties and starting parting her hair. "Why were you up so late anyway?" 

"Work" he said simply.  

"You were shooting that late?" She asked, curious. 

"I was already home by then." 

She turned around to look at him. Adrien was looking down at the plates, choosing his next cookie. He was being vague, but then again, Adrien had said he had gotten worked up about something. Should she push? Or give him some more time? Maybe both? Ask a question, give him time to answer. She faced the mirror again. 

"Did it go well?" 

She noticed one of her pigtails was a little lopsided. Frowning, she undid it and started again. When she was satisfied, she pulled her feet up, sitting cross-legged on the chair. She spun around, facing Adrien. To her surprise, he was still looking firmly down. She leaned forward to grab a cookie while she waited. 

"I think she tried to kiss me last night" he finally blurted out. 

She sat back up so quickly the chair moved a little. Her free hand shot out and grabbed the edge of the dressing table to still it. The cookie on her other hand had miraculously stayed unharmed. 

Ok, that wasn't exactly what Marinette was expecting to hear. Didn't he say that she didn't like him that way? Was she there, at his photoshoot? Did he work with her? Why was Adrien even telling  _her_  about this? He knew how she felt about him. 

At a loss, she let go of the table with a push, making the chair spin around. An obvious tactic to buy herself some time, but she didn't care. She tried to stay calm, to think things through. Adrien wouldn't purposely try to hurt her. Or make her feel jealous, like she very much felt right now. She closed her eyes, trying to ground herself. 

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. But I'm really confused, and talking things out always seems to help you, and... Please don't hate me, I'm sorry." 

Sighing, Marinette let the chair stop and faced Adrien again. She was grateful she couldn't focus her gaze enough to make eye contact. 

"No, I'm sorry. I told you we could talk about anything. It caught me by surprise, that's all." 

"It was selfish of me. We don't have to talk about it" Adrien said. The cookie he had was being meticulously shredded into pieces. 

Unable to help herself, she spun around once again. She didn't want to upset Adrien, but she also didn't understand why he would want to talk about this with her. He had even admitted to have feelings for her a while ago. Accidentally, sure, but he hadn't denied it when she confronted him about it. Could this be an elaborate set up to profess his feelings for her? 

Ugh. It was too much. She didn't know what to think. 

But then again, he had said that neither did him. He was right, he always helped her by letting her talk things through. Whatever he was feeling about the situation, it confused him too. He had helped her out so many times, the least she could do was to return the favor. Besides, she didn't even know where he was going with this. She could always tell him to drop it if she started feeling too uncomfortable. But she had to at least try. 

She didn’t even know how to begin, but she thought back to their past conversations. Whenever she was upset but didn't know how to talk about stuff, he would start asking questions until she finally found what she wanted to say. Sometimes there were too many possibilities in her head to try to unravel them all on her own. She got tangled up in what she might do and what she should think. Talking about stuff helped her understand how she really felt about the situation. 

So, ask questions. She could do that. After all, if she was being honest, she wanted to know more about what happened. Was it because she was genuinely curious? Because she wanted to hear that he had rejected her? She didn't know. But she knew that whatever had happened, whatever might happen, Adrien's happiness was her first priority. He needed her, and she would be there for him. Everything else was secondary. 

She stopped the chair one final time, and folded her hands on her lap to stop herself from making it spin again. "Ok, I'm ready" she said.  

Adrien tried talking her out of it again, but she had already made up her mind. She brushed him off and assured him that it was fine. 

"So, first, back up a little. The last time we talked about this you told me she had made clear she only saw you as a friend." 

Adrien set down his plate, and leaned further back. 

"That's what I thought too." 

So, he was confused about her feelings? Marinette couldn't help him with that. She had already done a lot of second guessing about her intentions, and she had decided that it wasn't her place to do so. She couldn't tell Adrien what this girl felt. No one could do that but the girl herself, and Marinette didn't even know her. 

"And also, how did she 'try to kiss you'? And how are you not sure?" She asked, trying another way. 

"After we were done, we were on a rooftop, looking out at the Eiffel Tower. I made a joke, and she laughed. And I turned to look at her and I realized that we were standing too close. We usually stand close but this was... closer." He paused. Marinette resisted the urge to tell him to go on. 

Well, she resisted it for about fifty seconds. But Adrien's mouth stayed firmly shut, and he  _had_ asked her to helped him talk about it. "And?" 

"She leaned in a little." 

"She leaned in a little?" She tried to suppress the disbelief in her voice. 

"Ok, I know it doesn't sound like much" Adrien said, raising his hands. "But trust me, you would agree with me if you had been there." 

Marinette would have to trust that. If Adrien said this was important, then it had to be. He didn't strike her as the type to see things that weren't there. If their history was any indication, it was quite the opposite. 

"She leaned in and then what? She stopped?" Did she make it so difficult for him to get information too? Why couldn't he tell the whole story in one go? 

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, evading her eyes again. "Then I freaked out, said bye and left in a hurry." 

"So you are telling me that the girl you've had a crush on for months might or might not have been about to kiss you, and you ran away?" Now the disbelief was definitively there. 

"Well, yes!" He leaned forward. "Listen, maybe I imagined the whole thing, ok? It was late, and I was tired, and she was tired, and maybe there was nothing there. But what if there was? What if she tries to do it again?" 

"You kiss her back, obviously!" The words were out of her mouth before she could fully process them. She didn't even think about how that might make her feel, it was just the logical answer. 

Adrien looked at her with wide eyes. "Mari, I can't do that." 

Marinette felt more confused than ever. She didn't understand Adrien's attitude at all. "Why not?" 

"It wouldn't be fair to her. Or you." 

She opened her mouth to argue, but then her thoughts caught up with her. 

He was right. 

If Adrien kissed her right then, right there, would she kiss him back? Was it ok to give in to it when she knew that her heart was divided in two? Sure, she had liked Adrien for longer that she had liked Chat. But that didn't make her feelings for either of them any less real. 

"You are right. Of course you are." She groaned, looking up at the ceiling. "Is it supposed to be this difficult? Is that why there are so many bad teen movies with even worse love triangles?"  

Adrien chuckled. He had stopped fidgeting with his food. At least he had finished his tea. 

It was so obvious now, that he had told her. She didn't understand why she hadn't seen it before. After all, hadn't she been thinking about this just last night, with Chat? It would have been so easy, so simple. They had been standing so close, and he had looked so beautiful up there, illuminated by the moon and the city lights. She was tired enough to let her mind wander, and it had ended up on him. It wasn't the first time it did, of course, but she usually tried to be more careful around him. 

She knew he liked her. And she knew she liked him. But did her like him enough? Enough to make up for all the things she didn't know about him? Enough to make up for all the things she couldn't share? Enough to make up for the fact that he wasn't the only boy who occupied her thoughts? 

They could always try. She had thought about it, up on that roof. She could tell him the truth, let him choose for himself if he wanted to give her a chance. She could lean in, kiss him, and see where it took them. But some part of her knew that it wouldn't be ok. Like Adrien said, it wouldn't be fair to Chat. 

She had made a choice, and she would stick to it for the time being. She wouldn't jeopardize their friendship, their partnership, like that. 

She probably wouldn't really have had time to do anything, since Chat had left only seconds later, but still. She felt better after making up her mind. Chat and Adrien were two of the most important people in her life. She didn't want anything to put that in danger. And now Adrien was here, making the same choice as her. She understood why he looked more at ease now. It was comforting to know that they both saw things the same way. 

Now all she had to do was make sure that there were no more moments like last night. She couldn't lead Chat on. If he had realized what she had been thinking the night before... 

He couldn't have, right? She hadn't thought that he would, she hadn't been acting any different. But now that Adrien was here, talking about noticing something off with  _his_  crush... 

It was not like she had been being obvious or anything. He had seen her looking at him, but that alone didn't mean anything. Then he had been on a hurry to get home before his transformation wore off, so it was unlikely that he had even been paying attention. 

But an alarm was going off in her head, and she couldn't figure out why. She tried to think back to the night before. She hadn't thought anything of what Chat had said at the time. It wasn't weird for him to leave in a hurry and- 

There. The phrasing. That was what was bothering her. Adrien had said that he had left in a hurry and... 

She stopped the thought right there. 

Only to pick it back up again. Because it was too much of a coincidence, but at the same time... It couldn't be. 

Could it? 

Wasn't it too easy? Too simple. All of that magic and all of that effort for her to figure it out here, with Adrien sitting on her floor and five different types of cookies between them. 

It was more likely that it made sense because she wanted it to make sense. It would be a little too convenient to find out that the two persons you are in love with are in fact, the same. Maybe she wanted it so badly she was making a mountain out of nothing. 

She realized she had been silent for a while. Adrien was again focused on his food, probably thinking things over and knowing that she needed to do the same. Only now Marinette had a much different issue in mind. Or was it the same? 

The problem was that it did sound like a real possibility, no matter how small. It wouldn't leave her alone until she had real proof that there was absolutely no way that Chat Noir was in fact Adrien Agreste. 

But how could she make sure? If she could just talk about this kind of thing she wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. She could justify revealing her identity to Adrien if she were sure he was Chat Noir. But what if she was wrong? She couldn't let Adrien know then. 

She resisted the urge to groan and bang her head against her desk. Wasn't luck Ladybug's power? Why didn't that transfer to her as Marinette? Why did secret identities and magical powers have to be so complicated? 

Making up her mind, she reached for another cookie. She realized she had been so absorbed on her feelings and the conversation that she hadn't eaten much yet. 

"So, you know this girl from your job, right?" She sounded too nonchalant to be genuine. But maybe he would think she was asking out of jealousy or something. At this point, that would be the best-case scenario if it turned out that she had gotten it all wrong. Which sounded terrible, if she was being honest, but what other choice did she have? 

"Right" he said, easily. 

"And how long have you known her?" She took a sip of her mug.  

"A few months." 

This would get her nowhere, she realized. Even if he did give her more concrete answers, he could always lie to her. Adrien was a celebrity with a controlling father, of course he knew how to lie through his teeth. And if he really  _was_  Chat, and he thought her questions might compromise his secret identity, then he wouldn't hesitate to say things to throw her off his trail. 

She would have to trust her gut and have faith that it would be ok. If he was Chat, then he'd realize that something was off too. And if he wasn't, then well, she'd have to hope he wouldn’t ask her about it. Because really, how was she going to justify it? There was also the issue that she was asking questions about something that was clearly off limits. He didn't ask about Chat, she didn't ask about his friend. They had never said it in so many words but it was always implied. She had always been grateful that he understood her need for privacy in that respect. Perhaps they had had the same reason for it? 

She hoped they did. 

She resisted the urge to get up and start pacing. "I'm sorry Adrien, you are going to have to trust me on this, ok?" She said, desperately hoping she was right, and that she wasn't risking upsetting Adrien over some silly wishful thinking. She wanted it to be real. She wanted it so bad she felt like she could burst from it. She wanted it so much she was willing to risk everything she had worked for to get the answers she needed.  

Adrien nodded and sat up straighter. But whatever he thought was going on, he didn't seem to feel threatened, only curious. 

"Last night, were you on top of a museum, at the other side of the river? You were the second one to get there but you were the first one to walk to the edge and look at the city." 

He frowned this time. "How do you know that?" 

And that was it, right? That was confirmation. But she couldn't stop thinking about all the times that Tikki told her that this was a bad idea. That she shouldn't tell Chat, she shouldn't tell anyone. What if she had it all wrong? What if she put Adrien in danger over nothing? 

"How do you think I know?" She asked. Because she was dying to let him know, to have him confirm her theories, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. She couldn't face the fact that maybe she had gotten it all wrong. 

Adrien looked down at the plates of pastries like he would find the answer there. 

"You would have had to be there" he said slowly, as if testing every word. 

Suddenly Adrien looked up with shock in his face, his mouth wide open. 

But he wasn't saying anything. And Marinette felt like was going to explode. She couldn't take it anymore. She didn't care about Tikki, she didn't care about the rules. She needed to know. 

She opened her mouth to say the words that would inevitably change her relationship with Adrien one way or the other, but he beat her to the punch. 

"Ladybug?" 

And that was exactly what she expected to hear. What she wanted to hear. But now that he had said it, now that she knew, she froze. She wasn't sure what to do. He was right there. Chat had always been  _right there_ , in front of her. And she hadn't seen it. 

"Marinette?" 

She forced herself to look at him. She saw the bright green eyes, and the carefully styled hair. The way his hands were clenched at his sides, the crinkle around his eyes. It spoke volumes about how much he trusted her, Ladybug or not, to have taken such a leap of faith. 

There were too many feelings, too many questions, too many thoughts to unpack but she couldn't afford to dwell on that just then. She did the only thing that felt right and launched herself at him, pulling him into a hug. 

She held him tightly against her. He reciprocated after a few seconds but she could feel the uncertainty in his lax hold.  

"I found you" she said once she got her voice back. "I can't believe I found you." 

That was apparently all he needed. She heard him let out a long breath and relax against her before he returned the hug with as much fervor as her.  

Marinette felt like he was the only thing keeping her together, stopping her from bursting from how happy she felt. No more worrying about where Chat might be, if he was ok. No more fearing that one day he would stop showing up. No more white lies, no more excuses. 

Adrien pulled her away, and she felt like complaining. But he held her at arm's length and looked at her face for a while. She couldn't deny him that. Part of her begged her to break the silence, to talk about this. But she knew Adrien was not ready yet, so she needed to wait. It was not like she was doing much better herself, but maybe talking would help her parse through the knot in her thoughts. 

And boy, did they have things to talk about.  All the things she had always thought about telling Chat, minus the things that Adrien already knew, multiplied by the times they had been with each other and they hadn't even realized it. 

She knew the first thing on her list though. She had been dying to tease Chat about flirting with her the first time she met her as Marinette for ages. It was impossibly better now that she knew it was actually Adrien who was flirting with her. And they weren't even friends at the time! He called her  _princess_. She's never going to let him live that down. 

But at the same time...if Adrien was Chat... and Chat was Adrien...  

"Don't do that!" said Adrien, shaking her out her thoughts. 

"Do what?" She asked, confused. 

"Freak out! If you freak out then I'm going to freak out!" 

"I'm not freaking out" she tried to defend herself. He looked at her disbelievingly and ok, the high pitched tone wasn't really helping her case. It probably didn't help that she had started slowly backing away from him. She didn't make it very far though. Rhe plates were still on the floor and she didn't want to crush any of them. 

"You are! And I don't even know what you are freaking out about but it's not exactly helping me stay calm either!" His voice was almost as high as hers and Marinette couldn't keep it together anymore. Ladybug might have been the clearheaded of the superhero duo but everyone knew Marinette was a mess _._  

"I scratched your chin, ok? I scratched Adrien Agreste's chin!" She said finally, and it came out even more frantic than she thought it would. 

Adrien looked at her with confusion at first, and it made her feel even sillier, if possible. Whatever was making him freak out clearly wasn't anything like that. But Marinette couldn't stop thinking about all the things she had done while she was with Chat, her best friend, that she certainly wouldn't have ever done with one Adrien Agreste, her other best friend. And there were a  _lot_  of things. She was about to take it back, when she saw Adrien's face go from confused, to horrified. 

"You've heard me  _purr_ " he said slowly. 

Any other day, Marinette would have killed to hear Adrien say something like that. It was probably the greatest thing she had ever heard him say. It gave her teasing material to last her a lifetime. But she was too busy feeling embarrassed about all the stuff  _she_  had done. The things he had  _seen._  

"You saw the pictures of you in my walls, Adrien!" 

She had never been ashamed of having a crush on Adrien. But there was a huge difference between him knowing about the abstract concept of it, and him seeing the physical manifestation of her inability to deal with said feelings. Her room had been covered with his face! And he had wanted to be her friend anyway?  _How?_  

But Adrien didn't seem to be aware of her little crisis. He had his own things to focus on. 

"You" he said suddenly, pointing at her. "You jumped inside a T. rex's mouth!"  

Marinette flinched, she never seemed to be done hurting Chat because of that particular stunt. She was working on it. Both, the impulsively launching herself at situations, and the trying to solve every problem by herself. That hadn't been the first or the last time she had worried her friend by failing to communicate him her plans. 

Her guilt was short lived though, since something much more important crossed her mind. 

"I called youhot stuff" She groaned, covering her face with her hands. Sure, Adrien hadn't actually heard it, so neither had Chat (and that, right there, was a sign that she wasn't processing this right, shouldn't she have stopped thinking about them as two different people by now?). But  _still._  

"Wait, when did that happen?" 

Oops. 

"Just, a silly voice mail, but I ended up deleting it." That's after all, what happened. "I wanted to ask you to the cinema but tripped all over my words and backed up." 

Adrien's eyes widened and he grabbed her by the shoulders.  

"I tried to set you up with Nino!" He said, and she would have laughed at his downright terrified tone if someone else hadn't beaten it to it. 

She briefly wondered if this was it, had she finally lost her mind? Because that seemed like the most reasonable explanation as for why there's laughing coming out of Adrien's pocket. 

Adrien glared at his shirt but a different voice rang out. 

"Plagg! Leave the kids alone." Tikki got out of wherever she was hiding, and sat herself on Marinette's shoulder. With all that had been happening she had honestly forgotten about the kwamis. 

A black thing poked out of Adrien's pocket. "C'mon Tikki, this is hilarious. I understand why you wanted them to keep the secret now." 

"It wasn't because it was fun Plagg, it was because it's safe _._ " 

"Sure, safe" he said, floating somewhere around Adrien's head. "That's what you always say and-" Tikki interrupted him by grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away. Plagg glared at her and grumbled, but didn't resist. 

"C'mon, let's give them some privacy" she pushed him through the trap door, then turned to look back at them. "It was nice finally meeting you, Adrien" she said, before disappearing behind Plagg. 

"I feel like I should apologize for him" Adrien said, but aside from that, a pause followed the kwamis' departure.  

Marinette felt a slight pressure on her forehead, as if she could feel her brain working to comprehend it all. She imagined it rewiring her memories so now all the roads lead back to the same boy. 

A boy that had had to hide his hands behind his back to stop himself from fidgeting. He looked like he had a headache too. 

"This is not that big of a deal, right?" She tried to appease him. "I mean we are already friends? Twice, I guess. So it's not like such a big change, right?" 

Key word was tried, of course. It probably didn't help that had enunciated everything as a question. 

"You are right! It's not a big deal at all!" Adrien said, and Marinette recognized that tone. It was Chat's this-plan-is-probably-going-to-get-you-killed-but-I-trust-you-so-I'll-follow-along tone. But that kind of fears had never come true so maybe these wouldn't either. "I just realized the two most important girls in my life are in fact, the same person. It's fine, I'm fine, not a big deal." She wondered if he realized how frantic he sounded.  

Marinette was shocked, and confused, and the pressure behind her eyes was still there, but it was clear that this was being much harder on Adrien.  

"Let's... let's talk about this, ok?" She was at a loss of what to say. She desperately wanted Adrien to feel better, but she wasn't sure exactly what was troubling him so much. 

"Right, let's talk" he agreed. 

She ached to reach out and grab his hands. She feared he might be gripping them so tight behind his back that it would leave a mark. But she didn't know if it was ok to touch him. She wasn't sure about anything anymore. 

Adrien moved in his place a little, as if looking for a more comfortable position. He said nothing, just continued looking at her. 

"Do you want to start?" He finally asked. 

"Not particularly" she said because, truthfully, what was there to say? She wanted to comfort Adrien but the facts were the facts and there was no way around them. 

"This was your idea!" He freed his hands to point at her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  

"They can't always be good ideas!" She said, probably a bit too sharply.  

He leaned forward, ready to argue with her. But he seemed to lose steam along the way. Instead, he furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes.  

"What?" She asked, crossing her arms. She felt weirdly defensive. 

"You are Ladybug." 

"Right, so?" 

"And I'm Chat." 

"Do you need to go over it again, Adrien? I thought it was already clear." She teased him, because teasing was fine. Something that both Ladybug and Marinette did. If she could still tease him, that meant things weren't that bad, right? 

He groaned and hid his face behind his hands. She idly remembered that Alya liked to say it was a habit he had picked up from Marinette. 

"I mean, that you are Ladybug, and you like Chat. And I'm Chat, and I like Ladybug." Marinette was suddenly  _very_  grateful he still wasn't looking at her. "Should we... do anything about it?" 

"I'm not doing anything right now, Adrien, I'm still in shock!" She said, horrified. They couldn't even deal with the simple fact that there were friends and he wanted to add their messy romantic feelings to the mix? 

"Oh, thank god" he said, slumping back and resting his head against her lounge chair. Only to sit back up, pink spreading through his cheeks. 

"I mean, not that I don't want to do anything. Just not right now, like you said. Because I'm pretty much a mess right now." 

And for some reason that was it. The way he said it, so matter-of-factly, was what made it for her. She started laughing and, just like that, it was ok. 

"It's ok Adrien, it's just me" she said once she could talk again. 

"Just you, Marinette? There's nothing..." He tried to continue, but she covered his mouth with her hand. He glared at her, but didn't move away. 

"No, no mushy stuff, remember? Just look at me and listen." She didn't wait for him to nod before she released him. She grabbed his hand instead. His gaze softened. "It's just me Adrien. And you are just you. You are my best friend, and I am your best friend. And we are going to be fine because that's us." 

It took him a second before he got it. He nodded, giving her hand a soft squeeze. 

"Are we good?" She asked, just to be sure. 

"We are good" he said, and finally found his smile again. 

She moved to sit next to him, so she could rest her head on his shoulder. He slung his arm around her shoulder. She closed her eyes and relaxed. She suddenly remembered that they couldn't account for ten hours of sleep between the two of them.  

Perhaps, if he had the afternoon free, he could stay for lunch. They could watch movies for a while. There were still things to talk about, of course, but she thought they deserved a break. 

She had opened her eyes to ask him when she noticed that he was biting his lip. 

"Stop that" she tried to be firm. She was just starting to loosen up but it seemed that they weren't done yet. Leave it to Adrien to keep finding things to worry about. 

"Stop what?" 

"The blaming yourself." She poked him on the side, trying to shake him out of it. She had seen that expression too many times not to recognize what it meant. 

Adrien put his hands up in surrender. Well, he tried. One of them was still trapped behind her. "Sorry!" He said, and Marinette sighed. "It's just that..." 

"No, it's nothing" she cut him off. "This is not your fault Adrien." 

"But maybe if I had paid a little more attention..." He tried to argue. 

"No, Adrien, you wouldn't have. Because I didn't want you to know, and you wanted to respect my wishes." 

"I guess you are right" he admitted after a few seconds. 

"Of course I'm right." 

"But that sounds dangerously close to you taking the blame, and that doesn't sound right either" he added, because apparently it was too much to ask for a bit of peace today. 

And the thing was, she wished so badly that she could blame this on Tikki. On her advice and her urgency for secrecy. But it wouldn't be right. Marinette might have never agreed with it, but she did use it to cover up her own reasons. She got comfortable in her role and didn't want anything to risk it. 

She thought she had gotten rid of this particular brand of insecurities a long time ago but apparently, she was wrong. 

"Look, Adrien, Ladybug is a superhero, ok? She has magic, she has luck. And I know that it's me, making all of those things happen. But the truth is that anyone could get the job done. I'm just a conduct for great things to happen. And Chat has only known that side of myself. I've always been Ladybug for him. I guess I was scared that he would find Marinette particularly underwhelming." 

"There's absolutely nothing underwhelming about you." 

"You might be a bit biased" she countered. 

"Just a bit?" He smiled, and she wished for nothing more that he could stay just like this. Happy, carefree, teasing. 

"What did I say about the mushy stuff? That's a direct violation of our friendship contract." She didn't think she sounded too stern, being still pressed up against his side and all. But she was tired, it didn’t seem all that worth it. 

"The thing is, I know your secret" Adrien whispered, as if afraid someone else might hear. 

"Yeah? And what's it?" She smiled despite herself. 

"That you are just as bad as I am. You only pretend to be all tough." She was the one to getting poked on the side this time. 

"One of us has to at least pretend to be sensible" she said, making him chuckle. 

"Ok, we can talk about this later. I don't have to be back until a few hours, do you want to watch a movie?" He asked, and Marinette felt like kissing him. But it wasn’t right yet. 

"You are the best. You pick one and start setting up, I'll let my parents know you are staying for lunch." 

If she did kiss his cheek before getting up well, it was a great plan. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I spared you from a note at the beginning but let's be honest, I'm super nervous about this one lol, especially because I had such a good time writing it? I mean I always enjoy writing fic but the writing process for this part was even messier than usual and I had so much fun. I always wanted these to have a rather lame reveal, with nothing there to distract them from the fact that they had to talk about what this meant for them.  
> Anyway, is this series done? Technically, no. I have at least another part planned. I have the connecting theme and everything but the draft is pretty much just two setences now. But I mean, all of these started with pretty much the same thing and sometimes even less so who knows. Also I haven't watched the new season yet, I didn't want to get distracted with other ideas before being done with this one.  
> I was thinking about changing some of the titles in the previous parts so if you were already planning on leaving a comment please let me know if you think it would be too confusing or not? I suck at titles and of course I'd come up with somewhat better ones two years after posting.  
> I'll try to be better at replying to comments this time, but if I don't you can also find me on [tumblr](http://thebravething.tumblr.com) where I'll probably do a better job at answering questions.


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